Let My Mother’s Parenting Lows Be Your Parenting Highs
Don’t make these mistakes if you want long, loving relationships with your children.
A few weeks ago, I sat down for a podcast interview with a fellow survivor. The topic? What it meant to break out of the shadow of a toxic mother. My guest had been there too. With a mother who was even more heinous than mine, she had overcome a million different struggles to build a life that was finally, genuinely her own.
As we neared the end of the podcast, we started talking about the defining moments of our childhoods with these parents. My guest told a harrowing story of her mother leaving her in a parking lot while she went on a date with some guy down the road. I was shocked. But imagine my surprise when my guest turned it all around on me.
“What was the worst thing your mother did to you? What was the biggest thing she got wrong?”
I was too stunned to speak. It was a question I hadn’t bothered to consider. What were my mother’s gravest flaws as a parent? More importantly, what could be done to break her cycles and ensure that I didn’t make the same mistakes that she did?
